The People on Board

It is impossible to give an exact number of victims aboard the Princess Sophia. The first death toll was released by the Dawson Daily News on November 7, 1918. This is the sum total of 288 passengers and 55 crew members. The CPR Inquiry drafted an official report which gave 289 passengers and 61 crew. The SOS sent out to the Cedar reported that there were 270 passengers in need of rescue; in Skagway, CPR Agent Lewis Johnston listed 278. Sophia passenger Auris McQueen reported that the Princess Sophia carried 400 souls in a final letter to his mother. The Sophia was refitted to accommodate 350 passengers before her Vancouver departure; there is no record that all 350 births were in use when she departed from Skagway. Her maximum capacity was registered at 500 passengers and 75 crew members.

With such a range in numbers, and knowing that there would have been undocumented workaways and stowaways, the exact number of how many people perished on board the Sophia will forever remain unknown; an unfortunate fact that is a tragedy in and of itself.

Vicitm List

The following list is compiled from several different sources in an attempt to put together a comprehensive list of the known victims. Where there is an alternate spelling of someone’s name that alteration has been provided in square brackets. The number of names listed here totals 360. The names are arranged by passenger or crew designation, then alphabetically by last name.